Based off of the third prompt from, well, the Prompts. I'm not really confident with the first line (which is the basis of the entire judging) but I had already started this little one shot and need it to be finished or I'll go insane. So I'm posting it.
Quote: A child needs a grandparent, anybody's grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world. –Charles and Ann Morse
Rating: K+
Pairings: Percabeth (isn't it always?)
Spoilers: I don't think so.
INSOMNIAC INTERPRETATIONS
(Late Nights with Grandma)
It was the night of creaking floorboards and dim attic lights in which she gave him a sort of peace in claw-foot bathtubs and runny candle wax that smelled of peppermint.
Typical thunder illuminated and deepened by the bass roar of silent, blinding spider web tendrils, lightning, flickered around them as their feet—the customary two each— carried them down the sidewalk. Both anticipated rain, though it never did come, much to his distant displeasure (he would've loved to be trapped in that attic just an hour longer). He willed his jacket closer to his physically-spent body and wished his mind to other, more intimate thoughts with his pillow.
She lugged him up the walkway and gripped the brass doorknocker—rapped once, twice—wishing her budding lover would be gentlemanly (hah!) and lend a girl a helping hand from the cold; that jacket was looking incredibly inviting. Her eyes involuntarily rolled themselves to which he shot her a curious look and she had to shrug him off.
Mr. Nicht stood in the doorway, thick-framed glasses tucked securely over his porky nose. Edward Nicht was a pink man with bristles of fire strewn across his head, serving no assistance in covering his equally pink scalp. Freckles dotted just about everywhere and she didn't doubt their existence under his sweater or khaki pants. Asthmatic problems that led to wheezing on occasion completed their neighbor beautifully.
"Come in," he obliged with an 'oh dear' in response to the chill, with a voice that was very Piglet-esque poking out through his camouflaged lips.
They, of course, made no argument nor spared a moment of hesitation in slipping through the white front door that was defined by its cheery, full wreath and bow. Inside, a blaze cackled, taunting him to come on over and enjoy the warmth though he couldn't with the manners his mother had instilled in him at a young age.
Mr. Nicht led them to a hallway, pointing out family portraits almost nervously, most likely just by the nature of the beast. He swallowed, stopped to wipe the sweat off his brow on his handkerchief and reached up for the ladder to the attic. It descended with a groan that he may have heard once or twice in select horror movies. Creeping up the steps, making a sudden transition from the warm light to the damp darkness of night, he wished they had decided to come over in the morning. But Mr. Nicht, the man tugging on a chain appendage of the light bulb, had insisted they come as soon as possible. A dim trace of light broke out over the room, casting long shadows that shifted with the swing of the light, exposing boxes of old family treasures and trash.
"Over here," Mr. Nicht pointed to the nearest cluster of cardboard boxes with black scrawl, "is my kids' old stuff. Barbie dolls, baseball cards—" the girl's fiancé brightened and jumped at the opportunity, only to be shut down by the glare she was giving him. She did not want baseball cards to be the Nicht family's wedding gift to them. Ever. "—Baby clothes…" It was her turn to glance at him coyly and laugh when he blanched.
Mr. Nicht fretfully rubbed his scalp and swung his arm around to just a little further away. She wasn't positive how he knew just where the divide between sections were and she didn't doubt he had brought dozens of younger couples up to his modest attic to sort through, which allowed her heart to settle because they (most likely) weren't the only people to just come and take items, whatever they pleased.
"Back there is old exercise equipment. And further back is the old China. A little dusty, but it's still pretty functional." He pinched his nose and let his hand fall. Her ears perked at 'China' and was chased anxiously by her eyebrows at the mention that she might even be able to use it. "The rest," Edward shrugged and rubbed his head again, "I don't really know what it is, but you can have at it. Whatever you want." And he was gone, down the ladder, retreating.
Both hesitated, not really sure what to do with themselves, drowning in a sea of stuff when he broke their entranced formation and began rummaging through the nearest boxes for Red Marion cards. She merely rolled her eyes, told him to save any cute yellow or green baby clothes he found (he groaned and paled once more), and shuffled over to the China sets.
The floors continued griping and groaning under her weight, each foot slowly rolling into place, her head turning around to study the titles on every box, taking a few moments to decipher the jumbled meanings.
Georgie's Art Supplies
Edward's Ball Cap Collection
College
Artie's Pez Dispensers
Soon, weird titles began eating away at the cardboard—things people wouldn't even dream of collecting, like old toothbrushes and popped headbands, and she really had no choice other than to meander past them quickly and silently. Pressed against the farthest, cream-colored wall was a chipped and worn down mahogany cabinet with glass doors for display. A small side window that she couldn't help but notice was shape like a rectangle with a triangle topping it off, like a house sliced in half, let liquid silver light stream in and melt over the China set in the case. Flecks of sooty dust clung to the dishes with the decency to be spread evenly amongst every relic. Four even finger trails slid down the middle plate, which told her that someone had definitely considered taking away the treasures.
With a good washing, they'd be sparkling in her apartment/soon-to-be house. Unless Percy did something stupid.
She wrapped her hand on the small, porcelain knob and attempted to pull it open easily; a pressure held the door down, like a vacuum or suction cup. She yanked a little harder and jolted as it popped open and the China wobbled. She anxiously put out a hand as if she could grab every falling piece in her one hand and luckily the China settled.
She glanced over her shoulder to him curled into himself and still rummaging through the box of juvenile baseball cards. He hadn't noticed her almost-flub. She rolled her eyes.
The China was heavy in her two calloused hands and dust dribbled slowly, drifting to the ground as she wiped it away. Her reflection was evident, if not glistening and clear. Oh, she really liked this set. Her eyes flitted to the remaining pieces and trailed over to a chipped teacup. That would undoubtedly end up being her favorite; she'd always had a thing for the broken—for the worn down and weary, and yet still functioning. The permanent objects of a world ever-changing. The solitude of that broken object—the strength of his scarred, tan arms…
He pulled a slip of paper from amongst the packs hurriedly, excitedly, hoping for someone worthwhile only to be met by a young Caucasian face that he didn't recognize. Not that he recognized many baseball players' faces—he was more into basketball. But after an argument with his cousin and a competition he had to pay retribution by finding some rare player. His hands glided over the fuzzy cotton he'd been dreading stumbling across and he pulled the little full-body pajamas from the box. A light, delicate green presented itself before him and he had to admit that he could definitely picture a little blond, grey-eyed baby squirming in the outfit.
It was the very second that he let his mind wander hopefully that the sound of glass shattering rung out through the down-right creepy attic with swaying lights and otherwise silence, the pen-drop kind. He held his breath momentarily before sliding his hand down towards the pocket of his jeans and pulling his trusty ballpoint pen. The outfit dropped back in the bin, lightning flickering through the few windows that allowed a filter of select moonlight. He crept, slowly, anxiously, with floorboards groaning below him—the noise was deafening suddenly in the porcelain silence.
He had figured out pretty quick that the sound had come from where Annabeth had been stationed and as he rounded a particularly high stack of boxes, he uncapped his sword and prepared for the worst. What he saw was slightly unsettling, but completely reassuring of his horrifying thoughts. Annabeth stood, eyes glanced and trance-like, in a claw-foot bathtub, slowly lowering into the white, glassy bowl. She ran her hands along the sides slowly and, when yet another floorboard creaked under his footing, glanced up at him with the same dazed expression.
"Annabeth," he started slowly, capping the lethal weapon and slipping it back in his pocket. He was aware of how sloth-like and intimidated his motions seemed, as if he had just cornered a wild creature that could trample him into pancake batter, but her glassy eyes were fixed so intently that he could feel himself prepared to pee his pants. "Are… are you okay?"
She blinked once… twice… shook her head and testily ran her hand across the tub again.
He wasn't really positive if it was normal—no, he knew this wasn't normal because Annabeth just didn't lose herself, especially when a tub was the item of question and quiet concern. It made him nervous, uneasy, he was hyperaware of everything she did and nothing he did. He winced after he was certain he could taste blood from biting his tongue (and he had no collective memory of ever clamping his jaw down on the fleshy bulge in his mouth). That little voice in the back of his mind reminded him that she had a complicated and colorful past full of betrayal and loathing and stepmothers with distaste towards her very existence and that this was all probably a part of it. Maybe she had a claw-foot tub hidden in her room from her younger years—he didn't doubt it…
His body was being lowered in next to her—when did that come into play? Her body curled up against his as his arm lowered around her, albeit protectively which he didn't fully appreciate. What did he have to protect her from anyways? Memories? Nightmares?
She curled further into him once he was situated and her eyes fluttered, lips parted just gently enough for him to feel her warm breath pounding against his shirt unhurriedly. He had to wait long enough for a crack of lightning and split of thunder to rein outside faintly, which he thought was fitting and chilling, and for her breathing to shallow out against him to a point where he worried she had fallen asleep before she started talking at him. With his eyes trained on the top of her head, the words filtered through his mind numbly and he worried he'd missed something by the time he fully tuned in.
"When I was five, before any of this demigod stuff made much sense to me," she puffed out her cheeks and traced a line from down his neck to his jean's waistline and back, "I had a grandma."
He had to pretend that sentence made sense, because a memory thin as a spider's web allowed him to recall that her father's mother hadn't been around ever since Annabeth was less than a year old. Heart attack or something based off of offense to her mere existence.
"Well," she gave a laugh without humor behind it, "the closest thing to a grandma I could get. Bobby and Mathew's grandma."
She murmured something into his fisted t-shirt and pursed her lips tightly from screaming or crying or showing anything parallel to the pain she may have been feeling all the years since she ran away. He stroked her head while she heaved the deep burden of breathing through her nostrils, and then she surprised him with a light tinkering laugh. A rare sound graced her lips and she produced a smile as she met his eyes, resting her chin over his heart.
"Peppermint candles were her favorite."
He hesitated before propping both hands on the side of the tub, signaling that he may be getting up, though she hardly even reacted. "I think I saw some candles over by the baseball cards." She pulled him back down, told him to shut up, he hadn't even heard the story yet and he was trying to escape her. He protested and she just grinned at him again.
"Anyways, I was five and it was my first day of school when I came home crying because I had been stalked on the playground. You know, monsters and stuff."
He nodded and dropped as comfortable as he could be when situated in a tub.
"Helen wasn't home yet from the grocery store and my dad was giving a lecture to free-thinkers on great innovations and the history of the airplane. There was no Bobby and Mathew at the time—well, not really. They were like the size of mustard seeds at the time. Anyway."
He grinned at her blasé attitude, trying to imagine how he would've reacted to talking about his mother actually being pregnant… by Paul. Shiver.
"Helen's mom was waiting for me to make sure I got home okay. I mean, I had never talked to her personally before then because that was kind of forbidden. The freak meeting the family was out of the question."
Annabeth could still imagine her exhausted, cheeky smile looking down upon her with Helen's eyes—or, at least how she imagined Helen's eyes if she ever smiled in her direction and actually meant it. Soft grey tufts curled around her head and she looked as if she could still run a marathon before you could say 'olley-olley-oxen-free'. Everything about her smelled of tobacco and peppermint, and the scent would linger about a room for days at a time whenever she did visit. The only inviting scent in that house that she could recall.
She had threw herself into that one woman's arms—a stranger really—and cried. She cried and cried until there was just about nothing left in her heart to let go off and then she sprung a few more tears just to be safe. And Helen's mother had just taken it like a true mother would do when her baby girl broke down from being bullied. She gathered the young one up in her arms, carried her down a long hallway and into her parent's room, where she wasn't normally allowed, and swung open an old, paint-chipped white door to reveal a traditional antique bathroom. A bathroom closet with the same chipped paint job and brass handles on every drawer, a porcelain toilet, and a claw-foot tub. A wooden jewelry box was nestled on the counter top. Candles littered every available space, tall and gleaming like gemstones, giving off a faint scent, burned wicks and wax frozen along the side of each.
Once curled up in a towel, nibbling on a cookie from the jewelry box (grandma had just winked as the pack creaked open), Annabeth watched as she lit up each and every candle, cursing the ones that just refused to take to the flame, and nibbled further down until her teeth grazed her fingers. Grandma sighed when the bathroom finally became crowded with peppermint whiffs and she settled herself next to Annabeth.
"I told her about what happened. Right before I ran away, she passed and things just got worse," she wiped her eyes on his shirt to find that a tear had been capture on the tips of her lashes.
He pretended not to notice.
Fin
A/N: Not how I intended to end this, but I couldn't quite work this out to fit any better considering the dead line is coming up. So, yeah.